his position is from a game I played against Liz Wood who is a very active organizer of tournaments in Pueblo, Colorado.

In the position on the right it is White to move.

Answer below.

Liz runs monthly tournaments in Pueblo which are a lot of fun. Liz uses a lot of creative names in her tournaments. This one was called the Steel City Summer Sizzler. It was about 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32.2 Celsius) in Pueblo during the tournament, so it lived up to it's name!

I grew up in Pittsburgh, PA, which is also known as the "Steel City", so I like how Pueblo is also a "Steel town". Because of this shared bond, some people from Pueblo are fans of the National Football League team the Pittsburgh Steelers, which is my favorite team :-)

I played this position just a few days after I wrote Newsletter #33 on Anastasia's mate. So I am not sure if it was a coincidence, or the fact that I has just studied this position, that I got a chance to use it in a rated over the board game just a week later.

This is a great mating pattern to know, and queen sacrifices are always fun to play :-) Even though I just sent a newsletter on this same mating pattern, I think it is important to look at different examples, to really drill the patterns into your head.

The nice thing about learning these patterns is that it can really cut down on your calculation time and effort. When I played 15. Rf3 I was able to see the 4 move combination of Ne7+, Qxh7 Rh3 and Rxh4 as one "chunk", and didn't have to calculate it.

Happy Tactics!

Your Friend,

P.S. As I mentioned above, writing this newsletter helped me later in one of my own games. If you have an experiences oh how Tactics Time has helped you, I would love to hear it!